


The Negotiation of Boundaries

by 9_of_Clubs



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Blood, Coda for Contorno, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_of_Clubs/pseuds/9_of_Clubs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you remain at arm’s length because you fear me?” Hannibal proposes a question to which he already has the answer. He doesn’t need to do that anymore, with Will, but it is easier for them both, to grasp for the familiar patterns of the past.</p><p>--</p><p>Or, what if Will was the one to take Hannibal home and take care of him after the run-in with Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Negotiation of Boundaries

“You allowed him to do this to you - “ He proposes the conversation in the face of the silence that sits between them, Hannibal’s tired, pain bright, eyes unrelenting in their gaze. Every step, every shift, quietly calculated. He doesn’t doubt that even like this, he would not get very far if he ran. But he did not come here, to the den of the beast, to run. 

“I allowed -” The voice comes low, a rough measure against the smooth beats, and it’s hard to know what Hannibal gives without choice and what he allows for purpose. But he does not need Hannibal’s purpose, he has his own. His arm shakes, for a moment, but his hand is steady when it finds fabric, feels the shape of a button, unhooks it. Hannibal watches him still. “a certain amount.” 

“A certain amount.” Repetition in the air that fades, wry amusement bitten back. “You could have prevented this?” And he has, agonizingly, terribly, in a way that is so far beyond any control he might or might not have, that seeps straight from the core of him, from whatever nefarious part of his DNA on which it is written, you will lo- That Hannibal Lecter will be the only person to be real in your world, he has missed the arrogant way the jaw tilts up, the lines of shadow which darken across sharp edges of cheeks, cliffs as the sun dwindles away into night. The imperceptible huff of air and the unyielding belief of rightness.

“Yes.” 

“Hannibal.” Exasperation, but fond. In its way. The vest comes undone and he pushes it off shoulders and lets it fall away, shudders again, in unclarity as to the originating cause, as Hannibal’s breath draws sharp with pain. In the echos of the blood and the wounds, evidence in situ, he hears the unmistakable crack of bone, the tinkling shatter of glass. It stirs loud around them, as they watch it together, a bruise lands on a chest, a kick between ribs. And the glass. The glass shatters and shatters, gravels deeper as pain comes from the drag of metal through skin and tendon. 

His fingers linger on a blood stained white shirt and for a moment the image wavers, she smiles at him.

Hannibal’s eyes are on him, pain bright, unrelenting in his gaze.

The moment lingers, a button comes undone and another and another. “Yes.” He agrees conversationally, with the tilt of a smile. “An allowance.” _An influence other than violence,_ the words come dancing back to him, as Hannibal’s eyebrows rise, but his shoulders relax imperceptibly, and an inch of distance between them is lost, before a layer much thinner of fabric joins it. 

An ironic choice of advice.

But he did not need her to know it. Between them there has never been the simplicity of one way or another.

He hesitates instead as the blood drips down pale skin, catches on the glistening glass, beads and drips on. Idly it occurs to him that Hannibal might wish to see before it’s lost to towels and water, admire the curious way he has been plucked and studded, pervasive enjoyment of his own ordeal. But Will doesn’t move, takes it in instead himself instead, with the same, lingering on one stream as it journeys, muddies, and is lost, and then another, follows them up, and pauses, as their eyes meet.

“Do you remain at arm’s length because you fear me?” Hannibal proposes a question to which he already has the answer. He doesn’t need to do that anymore, with Will, but it is easier for them both, to grasp for the familiar patterns of the past.

“No.” Assent underlies it, breathes out of him in a gasp, soft and sweet. Betrays what he has not admitted aloud, not to himself, not to the prying ears of others.

Hannibal’s eyes are on him, pain bright, unrelenting in their gaze.

Another rest begins, but he moves into the space to play the note before it can fully resound, before Hannibal can suggest or request, a test that has been set and passed without full realization from either, an arm's length, a foot step, fingertips. He doesn’t relish imagining, how long it might have taken if he had allowed Hannibal to be the one to say, before the grind of walls barely lowered, rising again, the creak of shifting locks, _so then why do you remain?_

He moves instead and earns quiet.

His fingers rising, moving, dragging through blood soaked hair to thread and tug, Hannibal’s good arm brushes his thigh. They knit together, look for the broken spaces that they will never be able to quite fill wholly again. But In the space of this moment, air properly fills his lungs for the first time since they’d left them, on another blood soaked night when everything had come to a pause, their bodies close, and ended, and starts. 

He breathes. 

And Hannibal breathes. His eyes closing beneath his lids. 

Perhaps, for the first time since then too, allowing the unrelenting gaze to fade away, for the first time since longer, since the dinner that Will had only barely been present for, that screams in his mind of need for apology and truth, but in reality spiraled in the vagaries of lie. Out of both their controls.

And.

They have been both alone, without each other. 

He trails the scarlet tips of his fingers back and forth, ignores for the moment, the glass that will need to be picked out of skin, the conversation that will likely still present itself, the further slew of choices to be made and gauntlets to be run.

His lips land feather soft on warm skin. Inhale the connection, Hannibal’s blood, the awful vestiges of his terrible cologne. Hannibal is soft beneath his touch, not open yet as he was, as he exists in a room in Will’s mind cheerily loosing papers into the air, preparing for a life that will never be. But soft. In a way he is only even capable of for Will, that he had pushed behind a door, or tried, but could not bring himself to lock.

There will always be tests, he knows, always boundaries subject to negotiation. Not all negotiation though requires a breach.

_I love him,_ He considers, if only to himself, as he stands in the offered darkness of trust. 

Hannibal’s eyes are not him, pain hidden, gaze quieted. And he, free to do as will.

And then. 

_I love you._

So he does.

It is sweeter, together.


End file.
